Frozen Assets: Concord Won't Hand 200B gp to Donwald

Concord leaders meeting in Ordulin this week turned down a plan from High Lord Donwald of the Golden Towers to take control of roughly 200 billion gp in frozen assets, the Damaran gold that has sat in Concord vaults since the war began. Donwald's envoys floated it as a bargaining chip for peace talks. The Concord's answer was no.

I have covered nineteen sieges. This was the first where the defenders refused to hand over the treasury and the attackers were supposedly on the same side.

The parley opened Thursday in the Ordulin great hall. Envoys from Waterdeep raised the idea on the ninth. A scroll-of-record printed it on the tenth. By Thursday, every chancellor in the room had rehearsed a refusal.

Chancellor Fredrik Mertz of Dolmen went first. "The gold is frozen in the Concord, and it shall remain frozen in the Concord," he said. Short. Flat. No hidden dagger detected, only a very large strongbox. Chancellor Petter Orpine of the Frostfells called the plan "completely out of the question." High Envoy Kaya Callas said the vaults answer to Concord hands alone. A fourth chancellor added that he was not convinced, citing the weather in Waterdeep, which changes by the hour.

Understand what is happening here. The gold belongs to nobody who can touch it. Damara cannot spend it. Vaasa cannot have it. Donwald wants to hold it while he negotiates between them, which is how a landlord holds a deposit. The Concord, a league of twenty-seven realms that cannot agree on lunch, agreed on this in about four minutes.

The rest of the parley went the usual way. Realms that pay into the shared treasury and realms that draw from it disagreed about the next seven-year budget. Six realms asked for a windfall levy on oil-lamp merchants. Duke Volodar of Vaasa asked for 70 billion gp in extra aid, because his funding for the next two winters has holes in it. The draft conclusions promise only to "revert to the issue in a timely manner." In my trade that is called a retreat to the second wall.

One more problem. Moving the gold needs every realm to agree. The Concord has agreed on little since its last trade bargain with Kara-Tur. Odds of unanimity on the vaults are thin. Tension holds at roughly thirty siege-days, mostly between the Concord and its supposed ally.

Nobody on the Ordulin floor said what they were all thinking. Donwald reads the vaults the way he reads the Golden Tower: if it's gold and it's nearby, it's his. The chancellors have noticed. They went home to check the locks.

Ironjaw, filed from the front.